GEN News Highlights

Medicago received a second milestone payment of $3.8 million under a Technology Investment Agreement signed last year with DARPA. The payment is part of a $21 million DARPA grant awarded to Medicago in August 2010 to develop a 90,000 sq. ft. cGMP facility in Research Triangle Park (RTP), NC.

The plant, now under construction, is intended to demonstrate the scalable manufacture of Medicago's plant-expressed virus-like particle vaccines in the U.S. The firm aims to show that it can produce 10 million doses per month of influenza vaccines with the potential for future expansion.

Medicago has received $10.7 million to date from DARPA toward the planned vaccine facility. "We have met all milestones to date, and our U.S. vaccine facility is projected to be operational during the second half of 2011,” says Mike Wanner, vp, U.S. operations for Medicago.

The DARPA project is part of the Blue Angel influenza vaccine rapid response demonstration project, which seeks to identify new ways to produce large amounts of high-quality vaccine-grade protein in less than three months in response to emerging and novel biologic threats.

Jobs

GEN Jobs powered by HireLifeScience.com connects you directly to employers in pharma, biotech, and the life sciences. View 40 to 50 fresh job postings daily or search for employment opportunities including those in R&D, clinical research, QA/QC, biomanufacturing, and regulatory affairs.

GEN Poll

Secure Science

Should bans on science education, of the sort imposed on Iranians hoping to study physics and engineering in the United States, encompass other nationals and other fields of study, including biotechnology?

No. Such bans could easily get out of control, preventing the sharing and growth of knowledge.

Yes. The potential, for example, for the development of bioweapons if biotech information gets into the wrong hands must be minimized.

No. Such bans could easily get out of control, preventing the sharing and growth of knowledge.

56.6%

Yes. The potential, for example, for the development of bioweapons if biotech information gets into the wrong hands must be minimized.

If you have any questions about your subscription, click
hereto email us or call at (914) 740-2189.

You may also be interested in subscribing to the GEN magazine, an indispensable
resource for everyone involved in the business of translating discoveries at the
bench into solutions that fight disease and improve health, agriculture, and the
environment. Subscribe
today to see why over 60,000 biotech professionals read GEN to
keep current in the areas of genomics, proteomics, drug discovery, biomarker discovery,
bioprocessing, molecular diagnostics, collaborations, biotech business trends, and
more.